Rocketman 2019

         Well, I haven't been back here for a while. And I've been going thru a lousy time emotionally and I sure could use a pick-me-up! Elton John's Rocketman seems to fit the bill. 

       I've always enjoyed Elton John ever since my mom gave me her cassette tape entitled Elton John's Greatest Hits Volume I & II. It had every great tune of Elton's from Your Song to Nikita.  Along with Billy Joel, they are both my favorite artists when it comes to 'killing me softly with his song'. Elton is emotionally personable with his music and at other times he's flashy and very sassy and a lot of fun. 

     From the outset of this film, which Elton had been trying to get made for twenty years, you can tell he's trying to bring back the musical. Like from the great era of musicals, the 1950's and 60's. It becomes clear to us that the man we have come to know as Elton Hercules John, who was born Reginald Dwight, has always thought his life would be best told in a musical. 

     The film starts out with Elton in a truly ridiculous stage costume dressed as a devil in bright orange and red. The story is that he was in New York , and even though he always made piles of money and sold out stadiums, he was unhappy and strung out on drugs. Its a community rehab meeting and he starts talking about his life and the substances he's addicted to and how he first became turned on to music as a little boy. Elton has a lot of great tunes but he bursts through the rehab meeting room doors to the street he grew up on in England to "The Bitch is Back". I knew it was going to be a great film. Possibly even better than Bohemian Rhapsody. 

      By the time he talks in rehab about admitting to his mother about being homosexual in which she tells him he'll never be loved properly, Elton, played awesomely by Taron Edgerton, has taken of his devil costume and he's in a robe. In other words, its Elton stripped of his masks and what he uses to cover his shame. 

       Elton tells us at the end of his film how he's retired now from performing, making records, and touring to raise his children. And while I think he deserves it and has certainly worked hard enough for it, I don't really believe it. A world class performer like Elton, the world doesn't let him just go away. Like Frank Sinatra, the world won't let him really retire.